Ante Meridiem

Mike Taylor starts your musical day with a generous serving of world music followed by a variety of Triple A music, including singer songwriters, rock, blues, jazz, reggae and more. Listen to Pulse of the Planet (9:30 am), and on Fridays at 11:55 am, listen here for the Dick & Jane Project - Song of the Week.

He opened his last album, 2013's band project Junip, with a thought experiment Nietzsche could love: "What would you do if it all came back to you?" The song, "Line Of Fire," dwells in a mood of idle 3 a.m. musing; González tosses out existential/metaphysical conundrums like he's feeding bread to ducks — casually, without worrying much about concrete answers.

Two stretched concepts made the rock 'n' roll coming out of Sun Studios in the 1950s unlike other music of its kind: time and space. In a shabby little room near downtown Memphis, Sam Phillips gave the men and kids he recorded all the room in the world. "Spontaneity" was Phillips' mantra, which was particularly potent for the youngest Sun cats.

What does it take for a work of art to become an intervention? In music, any reinterpretation alters the original, if only because different fingerprints touch it. But certain lineages — folk music, for example — are built on the bones of those retellings. Whoever owns a song for a period of time connects it to her lived experience and the world in which she lives, and it changes. It might also change the world, or a small part of it.

The songs of Elliott Smith are widely revered — especially by those who came of age in the '90s — but a new generation of listeners is only beginning to discover him. Seth Avett & Jessica Lea Mayfield Sing Elliott Smith is likely to expose new fans to the great singer-songwriter. Smith released five albums in his lifetime and died in 2003 from two stab wounds to the chest; he'd left a suicide note. His songs, which often dealt with depression and desperation, were beautiful and frequently quiet.

WCBE Exclusive

2:19 pm

Mon December 15, 2014

These guys are getting ready to play at the Music Loves Ohio benefit show, coming up the following night.

Several other musical acts will perform at that as well, including Nick D & The Believers, some of the guys from Forest & The Evergreens, Jon from The Floorwalkers, Joey From Devil's Lettuce, and more.